First Deal Under My Belt But Hungry for More - Now What?

[Ryan Kozuch]

Hello,

Just wanted to share my recent real estate success story. To review the original post I had about acquiring the deal you can read this pre-deal information and story.

So, my wife Brittany and I purchased our 3-plex in Milwaukee, WI on 08/30/17 and have been busy moving in and getting settled, but so far I'm hooked. Owning something is awesome, and living in that "something" that I own is even better. I have an immense sense of pride in being able to acquire this deal without having all the details figured out before we committed to it.

If you read my initial blog post, I didn't even have financial approval and more importantly wife approval at the time I realized this building was going to be a good fit for us. It definitely sent me scrambling to try and figure things out to get a bid in, but now that we are the owners, things are settling down.

I'm not actually too sure what the big ordeal is about "trying to get into real estate." As I mentioned before, I basically just decided I wanted to do it and threw money at it and it all happened rather easily. The only trying thing about it was all the communication and paperwork between the seller, the seller's agent, insurance quotes, the underwriters, but it's all fairly straightforward.

Regarding actual ownership and landlord items; I have been to Home Depot more times than I care to admit. Not, however, because I messed up in getting the right things - just chipping away at acquiring necessities as I go - but every couple of days I feel like I need 15 new things.

I've already done some demo work in the kitchen to open things up, bought and installed two washer/dryer sets (whoever did the plumbing was on drugs), and dealt with other little repairs that the current tenants had been nagging the previous owner about for months.

In order to recoup costs from having a vacant 3BR unit (where the seller lived) for this whole month of Sept, I got a short-term tenant in until the end of the month at a slightly reduced rate. I have since been scheduling showings for the unit and hope to have a decision made by the end of the week or early next week on who to accept. 

At the end of the day, I should be able to just about cover the mortgage, PMI (I did FHA), home owner's insurance from both units. We plan to live here about three years basically rent/mortgage free, but once we move out we should collect about $700 cash. I need to double check on the term limit for when I can refinance, but I plan to take the equity out and buy more property.

Moving forward I want to do this more seriously and commit more time to it. I am so very cash poor now, but I want to start getting involved in the real estate groups through BP and connect with people and hopefully partner on something that makes sense. I've done this deal all by myself because that's how I like to learn things, but I want to leverage someone else's experiences and honestly, money, to be able to tackle more deals quicker than I could on my own.

I've heard it mentioned through all the BP resources to be valuable and/or helpful to people and partnerships will happen, so that's what I hope to start doing. I have time, energy, sticktoitiveness, strong communication/sales ability and a passion for continued learning and growth so I will ride that "unfair advantage" and see what happens.

Thanks for reading!

Ryan Kozuch